—after Psalm 130
The rabbi is sitting with me
on the floor, my hand
reaching for your
earlobe through
the sheet’s barrier—
chanting the Shema
like that—my fingers
gentle on your earlobe—
and then every point
was moot—YOUR time
stilled—
I am mostly water-logged—
soggy with time
reaching for YOUR
ears—imagining
the holy lobes—
their possible softness—
What is it
that I want at that moment?
Not to lose both you
and YOU?
Although I ask YOU
to hear my words—I don’t
know what to say—
I am in darkness, fumbling
along the wall of the prayer’s words
—and with those, too
I am saturated.
I still watch for you
in the mornings—when the
veil is thin—a Van Gogh
palette of hope and faith
swirling through
me—I am asking
for astonishment—
I say to YOU
and to you—
Donna Spruijt-Metz’s books are To Phrase a Prayer for Peace (Wildhouse Publishing, 2025), General Release from the Beginning of the World (Free Verse Editions, 2023), And Scuttle My Balloon (with Flower Conroy, Pictureshow Press 2025) and her translation from the Dutch of Lucas Hirsch’s Wu Wei Eats an Egg (Ben Yehuda Press 2025). Chapbooks include Slippery Surfaces, And Haunt the World (with Flower Conroy). and Dear Ghost (winner Harbor Review Editor’s prize). Her poems appear in Poem-a-day, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She’s an emeritus professor, MacDowell fellow, rabbinical school drop-out, and former classical flutist. She gets restless.
photo credit Alexis Rhone Fancher
